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Octopus Smart Meter Experiences

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#401
Not sure how you calculate that.. The octopus standard rate is 21.93p/12.27p - and he could be on that for many months whilst waiting for a smart meter.

Even 'Go' has a more expensive day rate than his current tariff (which is very good.. I'm tempted to switch to that myself as it's lower than anything uswitch are suggesting).

So hesitation makes sense. Better to get a smart meter with his existing supplier before switching.
 
#402
Tony Hoyle said:
Not sure how you calculate that.. The octopus standard rate is 21.93p/12.27p - and he could be on that for many months whilst waiting for a smart meter.

Even 'Go' has a more expensive day rate than his current tariff (which is very good.. I'm tempted to switch to that myself as it's lower than anything uswitch are suggesting).

So hesitation makes sense. Better to get a smart meter with his existing supplier before switching.
Click to expand...
Which is what I'm doing. I pay 15p and an average standing charge. If I switched to Octopus, I'd be worse off with no guarantee they would be able to connect to my SMETS1 meter or upgrade me in a reasonable time if they couldn't. My current supplier is upgrading my meter to SMETS2 then I can look at switching later.
 
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#404
I've begun the switching process to Octopus just this week. My current supplier (Igloo energy) changed out my old SMETS1 smart meter a couple of weeks ago to a shiny new SMETS2 number.

Tis a bit of pain having to sign up to one of Octopus' standard tariffs initially then swap onto their Go tariff.
 
#405
I signed up to a Scottish Power 2 year deal in 2020, it ends in March 2022. At 12p/kwh plus standing charge it works out at 14.3p/kwh, based on our usage. Given the way electricity charges are going I'm not changing until I have to, when it will be a shock. We use about 7600 kwh/year...
 
#407
N0ddie said:
I've begun the switching process to Octopus just this week. My current supplier (Igloo energy) changed out my old SMETS1 smart meter a couple of weeks ago to a shiny new SMETS2 number.

Tis a bit of pain having to sign up to one of Octopus' standard tariffs initially then swap onto their Go tariff.
Click to expand...

On the plus side, the actual switch to an EV Tariff is flawless. Can do it all yourself through your online account as soon as the meters are giving them readings.

I've been a huge advocate for Octopus...and I suppose I still am, although the customer service woman I am dealing with currently is driving me up the wall with standard template replies and not listening to my actual question!!!!!
 
#408
N0ddie said:
7600kwh/y? :eek: I assume that includes a lot of EV charging as well as normal domestic use?

We used 3662kwh last year but that is without an EV to charge.
Click to expand...

Large 5 bed house, Electric AGA TV plus other kitchen stuff, part Air Conditioning, many electronic devices that are never turned off, EV charging.
We have PV panels and generate 480kwh in a good month.
Happy to pay for what we use - we have replaced every light with LEDs but are not willing to turn everything off just to save a few kw/h a week!
I went on U Switch to see what was available, the best offer was £300 more than the rate we are presently onn. It runs until March 2022 with Scottish Power. So no change in sight.
 
#409
Total failure.

Tail end of last year, having bought my Tesla, I signed up to Octopus Go. Octopus only took a couple of weeks and fitted a smart meter. Things seemed ok, occasionally I'd not get a bill, and using their "view your usage" I could see they'd stopped a day. I emailed, and within a week they'd sorted it and we were back on.

Until April 25th 2021. I raised the issue, and we then had 3 months of "we're trying". Cut to the tail end of last month, and they admit that the meter I have has a manufacturing defect, so can't feed back half hourly readings and I can't be on Go. They then backdate (I kid you not), all my bills back to the start of April 2021, at the Loyal Octopus flat rate (2p/kwh more than Go's daytime rate), and that's what I'm now on.

As I was working through the complaints process I have them agree that when (if?!) they get the meter working, they'll go back and refund my savings.

Takeaway? If you've a Kaifa smart meter, good luck, they appear to be broken. And as that's the issue, I'm stuck, even if I went to another provider, they'd not replace the smart meter (as it's SMETS2), and I'd be stuck with the same issues.
 
#411
We're with EDF on their GoElectric 98 rate, which is ending at the end of this month. We have tried to switch to Octopus but when we select smart meter they say this is incorrect, please select Economy 7, or contact us by email if this doesn't seem right. This seemed strange, so we contacted them by email and they said they'd look into it, 3 weeks later, no progress, so contacted them today and the person responding asked for our account number (we're not customers yet so obviously don't have one). I've replied pointing out that they have taken 3 weeks so far and our existing tariff comes to an end soon. In the meantime, EDF's offer has gone up so this delay has already cost us money if we decide not to switch.

It might be that the thing to do is just select Economy 7 and since my initial enquiry I've even seen another supplier say if you're a smart meter customer on a dual rate tariff this is what they want you to select. A simple statement form Octopus to this effect would get this moving. This distinction seems really silly, though - a smart meter is a smart meter, which tariff you're on shouldn't make any difference.

Our meter is SMETS2 and we've already switched from British Gas to EDF so this should be fine.

Has anyone else seen this issue when switching to Octopus from another dual-rate tariff and what did you do?
 
#412
Doing a bit of googling, it seems this relates to the 02 code at the start of the MPAN. This seems rather arcane when smart meters record every half hour. Ever since we switched to the dual rate tariff with EDF, they haven't been able to show us smart readings on the website (they have no issue reading the meter remotely to bill us).
 
#413
I've had quite a good experience so far. Switch to Octopus went through on 29 July, managed to get a smart meter installed 2 August (got lucky I think). Currently waiting for them to collect 14 days worth of meter readings before switching me to Octopus Go so not quite finished yet, but so far so good!
 
#414
So managed to speak to a person at Octopus, who said we need to select Economy 7. They also said the meter is SMETS1. This isn't correct, we had a SMETS1 meter installed years ago, and after a couple of supplier changes came back to the same supplier (BG) who said they could not use their own SMETS1 meter and installed a new SMETS2 meter in 2019. We then switched to EDF last year, and they were able to read from it. So I think Octopus will be able to read from it once we're set up. My suspicion is that when BG replaced the meter the second time, they did not update the records correctly. I wonder if it's possible to get this fixed, and who we'd need to speak to.
 
#415
As soon as your switch is confirmed, whilst waiting for your smart meter.. call them.up and ask to be put on the tracker rate. This is an Agile without the smart meter. You give a monthly reading, they divide it by the days in the month, work out how much you would have used each day and use Agile prices plus a small percentage to give you a bill.
I'm.in the most expensive area..23p/day 18 to 20p/kWh. Not as cheap as go but we can't get a smart meter here. As soon as you get your smart meter switch to your proffered tariff.
BUT DONT sit on the fixed tariff waiting.
 
#417
Are you sending them monthly readings? Are they sending you monthly reminders?
I usually get the bill a couple of days later..but it shows in my account view my balance history, within a couple of hours of sending the reading online.
Tony Hoyle said:
I did wonder how they calculated tracker.. they've yet to send a bill since I jointed Tracker in January despite prompting so I wondered if *they* knew how to calculate tracker yet..
Click to expand...
 
#418
The whole switching process is stacked against the consumer. I waited some time to have "Go" enabled, even though they just continued using the SMETS1 meter my old supplier installed (a Secure unit). I've recently had Octopus install a SMETS2 3-phase meter and it's now a week and counting for it to appear in my account. I'm sort of concerned that signal strength is an issue, but the engineer who installed was dismissive of actually testing it was working before waving goodbye. The problem is that any issues immediately mean that the consumer falls back to higher tariffs so it feels like you're just saddled with whatever the supplier dishes out.
 
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